Everywhere you look, there are so many success stories of other small business owners who started from a simple idea to create a thriving, profitable business they love. Their big achievements can make entrepreneurship look so easy, but the truth is they all went through a series a learning curves and had to overcome real challenges along the way.
If you’re not where you want to be in your business, you’ve got to first decide you are going to do something different to change. After all, if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.
[Definition of insanity]: Doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome.
So, how do you get from where you are in your small business to where you want to be Here are 6 simple steps you can take action on today to get you closer to creating a thriving and profitable business you love.
1. Write down your dream outcome goal and your why.
If you want to transform your business you’re going to have to make some changes. But, change is hard because it requires you to get out of your comfort zone. It’s even harder to
change if you aren’t super clear what you’re doing it for. That’s why it’s super important to paint a very specific picture of what your dream outcome goal looks like.
It’s not enough to say you want to grow your business to give your family a better life. Use the SMART goal method to help you be more specific. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound).
Here’s an excerpt from what I wrote down in 1998 when I was starting a new business and starting our family at the same time.
| Dream Outcome Goal – SMART | WHY? |
| Get my new business to generate half a million a year in revenues within the first 3 years. | That was the number that would pay the bills, maintain cash flow for the business and pay off my mortgage to be debt free. |
| Do this while working part time (15-20 hours per week) by year 3. | Having grown up with parents who both worked overtime every week (because they had to) I desperately did not want to miss out on those special toddler years with my own kids. |
With God’s help I was able to hit my two dream outcome goals by year 4. I know I would have definitely not hit these goals if I stated it in general terms like “I want to make more money and work less than I do now while making an impact in people’s lives”. Writing down specific target numbers I wanted to hit and what was at stake for me (my WHY) helped me stay laser focused.
2. Write down 3 things you know you should START doing and start doing them.
Pretty profound stuff isn’t it? I find with all of us, there are a lot of little basic common sense kind of stuff that we all know in the back of our minds that we should do. The first thing that keeps us from doing it is because we aren’t writing it down. If it’s something important enough to do, it’s important enough to write down. It reminds us to get it done. After all, knowing what to do never changes anything. We have to actually execute.
So, go ahead and write down all the easy stuff you know you should do. If you’re lacking energy it might be as basic as drink 64 oz of water every day, do a 30 min exercise routine every Tues-Thurs-Sat. and eat more fruits and veggies each day. If you know you should delegate more because you’re working way too many hours, then start delegating 5 hours of tasks off your plate or even just 1 to 2 hours to start.
3. Write down 3 things you know you should STOP doing and stop doing them.
If you’re not where you want to be in your business there’s something you’re doing wrong and you need to stop doing it. Because whatever you’re doing is not taking you where you want to be.
Here’s a short list of what some of my small business clients have shared with me they know they should stop doing:
- Stop doing your own bookkeeping. Hire one.
- Stop being a perfectionist. It’s making tasks take way more time than it needs to take.
- Stop doing repetitive tasks. Start automating it.
- Stop working “in” the business, so you can work “on” the business each day.
- Stop saying yes to everything. Protect your time.
- Stop worrying about what might happen. You can’t worry and achieve peak performance at the same time.
What about you? What are those things you already know you should stop doing? Write them down and commit to stop doing those things that are undermining your own success.
4. Write down the 1 biggest challenge you’ve been struggling with in your business for the longest time.
I can’t think of any great success story where the person did not have to overcome a big challenge. Get clear at identifying what is the biggest challenge that has been getting in the way of your business success.
5. Write down 3 things you tried to do to overcome that challenge.
Just doing this one exercise alone has helped many of my business coaching clients come up with better ways to overcome their challenge all on their own. There is power of clarity that comes from simply writing down and assessing what you’ve tried so far to overcome your biggest challenge.
6. Write down 3 people you could seek out who has the expertise you’re missing.
Mature people know what their expertise is in and what their expertise is not in. Immature people (or prideful people) try to figure everything out on their own.
Your area of expertise may be as a lawyer or as a healthcare practitioner or as a relationship coach, etc. If you know you are not yet an expert in marketing or sales or in scaling your business, what’s stopping you from seeking out those experts?
Somebody out there knows what you need to do to get you from where you are to where you want to be. What successful entrepreneurs do is when they don’t know how to solve something,
they don’t waste months or years trying to figure it out on their own. They seek out others who have expertise in overcoming those challenges.
In closing, I want to encourage you to take action on these 6 steps today. I also invite you to take a small step of accountability and share your progress on my brand new Ask Yoon page. You can also post questions that come up for you during the process.
QUESTION: What is your greatest takeaway from this blog article? Please share your comments below.
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